Minnesota garnishment: you get ten days' warning before your wages are touched
Minnesota procedure · Last verified August 17, 2026
Minnesota is one of the few states that requires a creditor to warn you before garnishing your wages. The earnings exemption notice has to be served ten or more days before the first garnishment summons goes to your employer.
That ten days is not a formality. It is the window in which returning one form can stop the garnishment from starting.
A note on sources
Minnesota's garnishment procedure is Chapter 571 of the Minnesota Statutes, enacted by the Legislature. This site's Minnesota corpus publishes the Minnesota Rules of Civil Procedure, so Chapter 571 sits outside it. This page describes the procedure and cites it precisely rather than reproducing its text. The official statutes are published by the Minnesota Revisor of Statutes at revisor.mn.gov.
Two different notices
Minn. Stat. § 571.72 requires that in every garnishment where the debtor is a natural person, the debtor be given a garnishment exemption notice. But the timing depends on what is being garnished, and the difference is large:
| What is being garnished | Which notice | When it is served |
|---|---|---|
| Earnings | the earnings exemption notice under § 571.924 | ten or more days before the first garnishment summons |
| Funds in a financial institution | the exemption notice under § 571.912 | with the garnishment summons |
For wages, you are warned in advance. For a bank account, the notice arrives at the same time as the garnishment — which is why bank levies feel abrupt in a way wage garnishments do not.
The ten days, and what to do inside them
Once the earnings exemption notice is served, the position is straightforward: if no statement of exemption is received by the creditor within ten days of the service of the notice, the creditor may proceed with the garnishment.
Read that the other way round. If you do return the exemption claim inside those ten days, the creditor cannot simply proceed.
The notice comes with the form. Complete it, claim the exemptions that apply to you, and return it to the creditor — the statute directs the claim to the creditor, not to the court.
Objecting once a garnishment is running
Where a garnishment is already in place, an objection is made under § 571.914, using the form prescribed by § 571.914, subdivision 2. Subdivision 1 sets out how the objection is interposed.
So there are two distinct moments, and they use different mechanisms:
- Before the garnishment starts — return the exemption statement inside the ten days after the § 571.924 notice.
- After it has started, or on a bank garnishment — object under § 571.914 on the statutory form.
What is exempt
Minnesota's exemption notices list the categories, and they are broader than many states'. They include government benefit payments — assistance based on need, Social Security, unemployment, workers' compensation, veterans' benefits — and they protect funds traceable to those sources in a bank account, not only the payment itself.
There is also a needs-based protection: a debtor who is receiving, or has recently received, relief based on need is protected, and the exemption notice asks about exactly that.
For earnings, the amount reachable is capped by the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act floor — the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage — with Minnesota's own protections layered on top.
If the judgment itself is wrong
None of this reopens the judgment. If a default judgment was entered against you without proper service, that is attacked in the case that produced it, under Minn. R. Civ. P. 60.02 — which is on this site.
It is worth doing both: return the exemption claim to stop the money moving, and move under Rule 60.02 against the judgment.
Note also that Minnesota's unusual commencement rule means some defendants genuinely never receive a court file — see commencing a Minnesota action, where an action starts on service and need not be filed for a year.
How Minnesota compares
| Minnesota | Ohio | Georgia | Wisconsin | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advance warning before wage garnishment | yes — 10+ days | yes — 15-day demand | no | no |
| Where the claim goes | the creditor | the clerk of court | the clerk of court | the employer |
| Deadline to claim | 10 days from the notice | 5 business days | none before disbursement | none |
| Separate procedure for bank garnishment | yes, notice served with the summons | — | — | — |
| Maximum from earnings | 25% of disposable (federal floor) | 25% | 25% | 20% |
A short checklist
- Open the earnings exemption notice immediately and find the date it was served.
- Return the exemption statement to the creditor within ten days. If nothing is received in that period, the creditor may proceed.
- Claim every exemption that applies — benefit income, needs-based assistance, and funds in an account that are traceable to those sources.
- On a bank garnishment, expect the notice with the summons, not before, and object under § 571.914 on the prescribed form.
- Keep proof of what you sent and when. The ten days is measured from service of the notice.
- Check the arithmetic — 25% of disposable earnings, or the excess over 30 times the federal minimum wage, whichever is less.
- If the underlying judgment is defective, move under Minn. R. Civ. P. 60.02 separately. The exemption claim does not touch the judgment.
Where these rules live
- Minn. R. Civ. P. 60 — Relief from Judgment or Order
- Minn. R. Civ. P. 64 — Seizure of Person or Property
- Minn. R. Civ. P. 69 — Execution
- Official statutory text: Minn. Stat. ch. 571 (Garnishment), published by the Minnesota Revisor of Statutes.
This page explains how the procedure works. It isn't legal advice. Chapter 571 is a statute rather than a rule of civil procedure, so its text is not reproduced on this site; check §§ 571.72, 571.912, 571.914 and 571.924 against the official text, and note that exemption dollar figures are adjusted periodically.